These Hipster Hairdressers Are The Face Of Modern China [PHOTOS]

As of 2011, 252.78 million people in China were migrant workers. That number will increase by more than 240 million migrants by 2025, putting the total urban population at nearly 1 billion people. Many of these urban-dwelling migrant workers are young people who leave their country homes to work in the big city.

Swiss photographers Stéphanie Borcard & Nicolas Métraux of BM Photo recently documented this migrant phenomenon through the lens of young Chinese hairdressers in the city of Chengdu. The city, while lesser known than Beijing, Hong Kong, or Shanghai, is quickly becoming an economic powerhouse in the country. After taking portraits of the hairdressers, the duo asked their subjects to allow them to photograph their homes. Though cramped and lacking privacy by Western standards, the dorms, apartments, and rooms exemplified the living conditions of other young migrants in China.

Borcard and Metraux shared some photos from the project here, but you can see the rest at their website. They share work from their latest projects on Facebook.

To begin the project, Borcard and Métraux walked the streets of Chengdu for 8 hours a day, walking into every hair salon they encountered to scout potential subjects and ask the owner if they could photograph.

Stephanie Borcard & Nicolas mMetraux

Chen Feng, 20, works at Fashion Representation Salon.

The hairdressers are very easy to pick out in a crowd in China because of their style. Their outlandish fashions are not common, except among these hair stylists and karaoke bar operators.

Stephanie Borcard & Nicolas mMetraux

Yi Bo, 19, used to work at Flower Vine Image Design Salon. He eventually left Chengdu to move to his home village.

After photographing their subjects, they came back a week later with a translator, who further explained the concept of the project. The translator was key to getting the hairdressers to agree to let them photograph their homes. In Chinese culture, it is not common to allow strangers into your home.

Stephanie Borcard & Nicolas mMetraux

Yu Yan, 28, has worked at Only Beauty Salon for the last four years.

Most hairdressers live in accommodations provided by the owner of the hair salon, often in the same apartment as the boss. Sometimes there are as many as 10 or 15 people living in the same apartment, dorm-style. "Privacy is nonexistent," Métraux said.

Stephanie Borcard & Nicolas mMetraux

Jin Shan, 18, works at New Dawn Salon.

At the back of most of the hair salons was a door that lead to an apartment building where the boss and hairdressers live. "It was like Alice-in-Wonderland to go from the glitzy hair salons through a door into a whole other world," Borcard said. Yang Hao (pictured) lives in the same apartment as his boss and sends money home regularly, despite rarely seeing his family.

Stephanie Borcard & Nicolas mMetraux

Yang Hao, 17, works at Duke Stylish Salon.

These two hairdressers must share a bed, which is in the entry hall to their boss's apartment.

Stephanie Borcard & Nicolas Metraux

Yang Wei works at the Romantic Space Salon and lives with his wife in a small apartment. They are expecting their first child in a few months.

Stephanie Borcard & Nicolas mMetraux

Yang Wei, 22, works at Romantic Space Salon.

The hairdressing job isn't all it's cracked up to be. A few months after working at the Flower Vine Image Design Salon, Xin Zeng quit his job to work nights at a local gay bar. Like many migrants, Zeng shuffles through numerous jobs to make ends meet.

Stephanie Borcard & Nicolas mMetraux

Chuan Xin Zeng, 18, used to work at Flower Vine Image Design Salon.